


Eighth Rising

by TexasDreamer01



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Character Study, Developing Friendships, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-17
Updated: 2018-12-17
Packaged: 2019-09-21 05:02:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17037134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TexasDreamer01/pseuds/TexasDreamer01
Summary: The sea was loud, and her thoughts louder.





	Eighth Rising

**Author's Note:**

  * For [facethestrange](https://archiveofourown.org/users/facethestrange/gifts).



> 七転び八起き - Nana korobi ya oki.  
> Translation: Fall down seven times, get up eight  
> English equivalent: If at first you don't succeed try, try again.

Waves lapped against the rocks, an incessant rocking that slapped against the shore and made her fingers twitch in irritation. Its turbulence did not match her own; thoughts, memories – they fell upon each other in a cacophonous jumble that was at odds with the steady beat of the sea.

She wanted to turn away from the water, and its mocking stability, but that would mean facing the Avatar, and the calm, gently flickering light of his _qi_. Azula fixed her gaze upon the white-capped waves, inhaling deeply and pressing shorn fingernails into the fine cloth her jailers had _graciously_ provided her.

It was difficult to not fall into meditation, lulled by the banked fires of the Avatar’s spirit. Between- between _Aang_ , and the sea’s own unfathomable potential, the snarls of her _qi_ smoothed, tugging her shoulders into relaxation. Azula gusted a sigh, listening to the rustle of homespun robes settle beside her.

They shared quiet minutes, air filled with sea-spray and rhythmic breathing – Azula had been standing there long enough for salt to limn the edges of her hair, haphazardly regrown in the long months since her coronation ceremony. Her fingers twitched once more, unfolding into a loose curl. The Avatar was calming, in his own way, flight-staff leaned against his shoulder with its oiled wood gleaming in the corner of her eye.

He did not speak, something for which she was grateful, and she filled the air between them with a rusty exhale. Azula stared out to where the sea met the sky, ignoring how the sun’s creeping descent made her eyes water with the strain.

“Why are you here?”

“You.”

Azula laughed, less bitter and more resigned. “To take me back?”

She turned to see him shrug, saffron robes fluttering with the movement – ever the airbender, despite the past lives that sometimes roared with the ephemeral echoes of their own, combined _qi_. Aang had his own strength, to resist his past, despite how he had led the wildfire that scorched her livelihood.

He gave her a measured gaze, one hand loose around his staff, beguiling for how he pretended to need its support. “I’m not sure,” Aang replied, tilting his head, “Do you want me to?”

That earned him a smirk. It wasn’t as sharp, as filled with the heady feeling of her past status as Princess Regent, but enough to make the Avatar’s grip stiffen upon the flight-staff. The impassiveness didn’t fool her, but it was gratifying to know that she still presented as a threat.

“No,” Azula replied, turning back to the sea, making the dully-glittering salt crackle with the movement.

A sigh was her reply, “I want to help you.”

“Like you helped my father?”

A flicker of _qi_ , before it bloomed into something stronger. Aang’s determination was reflected in his tone, “I’m sorry about your mom.”

Azula jerked, “She’s not dead.”

Grass-muffled steps, and then a hand on her shoulder, tentatively-put. Her acquiescence made the touch warmer, a solid weight that betrayed how insubstantial she had become. “Azula,” he said, speaking slowly – as if he were choosing his words carefully, “You still lost her. And she still hurt you.”

She clenched her hands, turning to glare at him. Aang remained undeterred, shifting so his hand was still companionably – _comfortingly_ – on her shoulder. The temptation to shrug him off, to march away and hide the burning of her face, softened at the genuine, if foreign, compassion in his expression. Nails digging into the meat of her palm, Azula waited for him to continue.

The hand at her shoulder squeezed lightly in recognition, “You have every right to be upset at her. But- you don’t have to be upset alone.”

Azula stared at him. Echoes of her past lessons reared their heads, straightening her back into steely posture out of old, old habit. Words wanted to clatter their way into the empty space between them – fill it up with something sharp, and commanding. And lonely, she didn’t want to admit, but power was often isolating.

That was a lesson she knew very well.

Feeling the warmth of the Avatar’s _qi_ buffeting Ozai’s teachings, something kind yet unrelenting, prickled the edges of those scars. She frowned, lips a thin, disapproving slash of salt-scalded red. _First Mother…_

It wasn’t, she abruptly decided, _fair_. “Everyone _leaves_.”

Not _me_ , she didn’t say, restraining the word behind an unhappy grimace. The implicit sentiment seemed to be understood, though, a revelation she was bitterly glad for. A tug on her shoulder drew her closer to the boy that reminded Azula so much of a barely-contained wildfire. She let herself be settled into a hug, closing her eyes at the scratch of rough wool upon her cheek.

“I’m sorry,” Aang said, when she knotted her hands into his robes, and he let his staff fall to the ground with a gentle gust. A hand landed, tentatively, gently upon her head, a counterpoint to the firm palm between her shoulders, “I’m sorry that- that people made you think you _had_ to be alone. That everyone left.”

When Azula’s breathing wavered, hitching on a distraught exhale, his grip tightened in reassurance. “But some people came back,” He said, “Zuko, and Uncle Iroh, and- even Mai, and Ty Lee. You have us, too – Katara and Sokka and Toph. Suki, too, when she’s not busy with Kyoshi.”

It was more people than Azula had dared to consider, but the absolute certainty in his voice – after the disaster that finding her mother had been, how _abandoned_ she felt, and _replaced_ – doused the discordant jangle of her thoughts. She shivered, knowing her grasp upon the ever-present embers of her own _qi_ was stolen away from her, neatly purloined with the knowledge that Aang spoke naught but the perplexing truth.

“I want to go home,” Azula said, the unending rhythm of waves upon shore filtering past the buzzing in her ears. She smelled the salt in her hair, and the pungent scent of seal-fat soap that wafted from the cheerfully-colored wool her nose was buried into.

There was a smile at her temple, a sharp gust of air and the _whap_ of wood hitting the hand that had removed itself from her hair. Azula reluctantly leaned away, a wan smile growing when Aang tangled their fingers together, a casual gesture of friendship as he led the way.


End file.
